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Egypt Takes the 2008 African Cup of Nations

Last June, as part of Vanity Fair's coverage for the July Africa issue, I traveled to the rebel capital in northern Ivory Coast to report on a soccer match for VF.com. The game was a blowout (Ivory Coast crushed Madagascar, 5-0), but that wasn't the point of the story. Split in half by nearly five years of civil war, Ivory Coast was finally reuniting, thanks in large part to the pleading of Didier Drogba (below center, in a photo I took last year), the Chelsea striker who is the captain of the Ivorian national team. Drogba called on the two warring sides to drop their guns, dismantle the front lines, and come together in rebel territory for a symbolic peace match. Along the way, he was idolized as a national hero.

That game was a qualifier for the 2008 African Cup of Nations, which was hosted this year by Ghana, Ivory Coast's neighbor to the east. I've been in Ghana the past three weeks, and managed to travel to all four stadiums to watch 10 of the tournament's 32 matches. The country that made headlines last year as the first African nation to celebrate 50 years of independence proved up to the task of throwing the biggest party on the continent—dressing streets, buildings, and people in the green, yellow, and red of its national flag and encouraging all the horn-blowing and drum-pounding that fans could muster.And muster they did. You couldn't go anywhere in Ghana the past 21 days without experiencing near-constant celebrating, from locals and visitors alike. Ghanaians waved their team's flag fervently, even at games hundreds of miles away from the cities where their beloved Black Stars were playing; fans who'd flown in from Senegal and South Africa and Sudan engaged in playful sword fights in the streets; disc jockeys on religious radio stations interrupted gospel music with divine prognostications on upcoming matches, punctuating their thoughts with the station's call sign—"104.5 FM! The BOMB! [insert sound of explosion here]."

Most people seemed to be hoping for a showdown in the final between Ivory Coast and Ghana, a game that would have featured two Chelsea teammates that are stars of the English Premier League: Ivory Coast's Drogba and Ghana's Michael Essien. But it wasn't to be. Both teams lost in the semifinals, recasting the dream matchup into a battle for third place. (Ghana won the consolation game with two late goals against a flustered Ivorian team, 4-2.)

And so the final pitted defending champs Egypt (which won the 2006 Cup by beating Ivory Coast on penalty kicks) against Cameroon (which lost to Egypt in their first game of this year's tournament). The crowd at the stadium was heavily in favor of Cameroon, but Egypt's style of play—which relies on crisp passing and solid teamwork instead of flashy individualism—outclassed their opponents, just as it had all tournament long. The Pharaohs won, 1-0.

Over glasses of Guinness after the game, the Ghanaian reggae artist Rocky Dawuni, who had flown in from his home in Malibu for the last couple rounds of the tournament, was upbeat.

"Hosting this African Cup of Nations was a big honor," he told me. "But it wasn't ours to champion and win. Our thing was to bring Africa together. All praises to the Pharaohs for winning the Cup, and all praises to Ghanaians, who were able to provide a welcoming environment to all our brothers from different parts of the continent."

And, in fact, I saw little evidence of disappointment from anyone after the final whistle. As the Egyptian team danced on the field, confetti showering over them and fireworks exploding into the hot night, a young man marched through the stadium, waving his Ghana flag, blowing a plastic horn, and chanting something I could not quite make out. A popular saying since the start of the tournament among Ghanaians had been "Host and win!"—and it wasn't until the man with the horn got closer to me that I understood his tweak of that theme.

"Host and bronze!" he shouted as he marched, his sweaty face stretched into a wide smile. "Host and bronze!"

Austin Merrill's writing on Africa has appeared inThe New Republic, Wired, The New York Observer, Tin House,* and elsewhere.*